


For you, Sherlock

by blackskies



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:09:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackskies/pseuds/blackskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I need to write. I have to let it all out somehow. For you, Sherlock. All the things I wanted to say – but didn’t. Sorry if it’s rubbish.”<br/>-<br/>John Watson writes – a stream of thoughts, things he needs to say. He’s not restricted to the limitations of his blog because he writes for one man only, the one man who won’t be able to read the words. But it helps.  He doesn’t hold back. Raw, he lets it go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For you, Sherlock

**6 September 2012**

I need to write. I have to let it all out somehow. For you, Sherlock. All the things I wanted to say – but didn’t. Sorry if it’s rubbish.

It just all hit me so hard. Hit harder than your body against the pavement. Except I’m still alive. Alive but…numb. I feel numb.

The fucking pavement.

You just…you crumpled – crumbled – crushed – crashed.

Words. There are so many words in my head. So many words and I don’t know which to use. So many thoughts, as well. Is this what you felt like? You always had so much in that brilliant head of yours all the time. But you knew how to use it all. You were clever. So clever, you really were. I hated what you said to me on the phone. Just…No, Sherlock, please. Don’t tell me you weren’t. All I managed to say was that you could – you could be that clever.  I didn’t elaborate. Why didn’t I? Maybe I could have kept you talking. Kept you from jumping. If I had the ability to go back in time, I would have told you that there wasn’t a soul on this earth as clever as you. You could recall something in a flash. You could figure out a puzzle in seconds. I’m not clever like you. I can’t do those things. I can’t use my brain like you used yours. I can’t even figure out words anymore. If I could go back, I wouldn’t have left your side. I can’t feel guilty about this, though.

I’m trying to really grasp a word, a word to describe the way you looked on the pavement, a word to describe the way I felt then and the way I feel now, a word that will make everything make sense, but I’m not finding one. Well, I find a lot. I just can’t choose one. There are just too many words and I don’t think a single word can convey my feelings anyway. My therapist asks me how I feel. I tell her I don’t know. I do know how I feel, but I don’t know a word. She assumes, though, picks up on signals. She’s dealt with grief before – countless times. I just tell her what goes on in my head. It’s always the same thing. The same scene just replays in my mind. Our last conversation echoes in my skull constantly. It’s like a telly I can’t turn off or turn down. The thoughts do what they want. They attack whenever they feel like it. They’re vicious. I hate them.

The visual memory alone is far too much. I don’t know how to describe you like _that._ I hate thinking about it. If I think about it, my chest gets tight. My lungs stop working. Everything closes up. Tunnel vision and all I can see is you. You there…I can’t breathe. I feel cold. I shiver. The words, the feelings, everything is just too confusing. No. Confusing isn’t the right word. Maybe it is. Painful. Excruciating.  


It’s been months since you jumped, since I visited your grave and let out some of what I’m feeling to your headstone. After all this time, I still want to believe you’re alive. I was able to admit you weren’t to my therapist, but I pleaded with your grave. Usually, most of the time, at least now, it’s hard for me to say it to myself. I know you’re gone; I don’t want to believe it, but the delusion is hard to keep up.

I’ll just sit in a room of stacked boxes. Your stuff in boxes. You in boxes. You cannot be contained by boxes and yet you are. I almost want to tell Mrs. Hudson that she shouldn’t have packed you away. Not someone like you. You could never just be put away like that. Mrs. Hudson tried to keep your things organised, but I just see you in those boxes and you’re not to be organised. You are wild. Mad. Brilliant. Not organised. You are Sherlock Holmes and it hurts seeing you put away like that. But I know if I were to unpack you, I’d hurt twice as much.

Twice? More than twice? I can’t measure my hurt in numbers; I’d just hurt if I walked into the flat and saw your stuff sitting around untouched. Either way, it’s just hard to pretend you’re not gone. God, Sherlock. It hurts to think about. I want to describe you in a different way, a different way other than “gone.” Am I masochist? Why do I want so many details? Why do I want new words? Can’t “you’re dead” be enough? I feel like you’ve rubbed off on me. I feel like you at a crime scene, your calculated eyes scanning the corpse for every possible clue that could have lead to death. Do I want to go back, relive your last few moments, and deduce you like you would all those victims? What would I have seen if I had your eyes? What would I have deduced about the man on the ledge, the body on the pavement? Most of all, why, _just why,_ does my mind keep repeating those last few minutes with you? It’s torture. But I can’t turn it off.

I thought this would help. Writing it all down. But still, I just can’t describe your body. Right now I can’t do anything. I'll make myself a cup of tea right now. Wish you were here so I could offer you one.

Lifeless. There. That’s a different word. Lifeless and I knew you were gone when you hit the ground, but I reached out anyway. I held on. Your life had already slipped out of you before I made it to your side, but I held on to you. Pleading. I didn’t want to let go. Come back to me, I thought. No. No, you idiot. Sherlock, please, no.

Sherlock, what have you done?

Fragile. Fallen.

You did look fragile. You did fall. Those are right words. Of course you looked fragile. Everything you ever were – mad brilliance, mystery – was gone. You were gone. You were dead. You _are_ dead.

The sight of blood on you made me sick. It made my stomach turn. I’d seen so much, Sherlock. I’d seen so much blood. Afghanistan. I saw terrible things. Things that give me nightmares. Even with you, solving cases. I saw terrible things with you. No matter what you did, no matter the lengths you’d go to solve a case, no matter if you tried to drug me and no matter if you experimented on me, not once did I think that I’d look down and see you like a crime scene. It made me sick. My best friend: bloodied, gone.

Your eyes haunt me.

Why did you keep your eyes open? Did you want me to look into them one last time? Did you think it would be a good thing to do?I’d joke if you were alive, "Bit not good. Timing." I’m laughing right now but it hurts. It’s not funny, why am I laughing?

I wish you would just close your eyes. Close them now. I don’t want to see them anymore. I wish I could’ve closed them for you. I wish I could have touched your face. I regret not doing it, but I don’t regret doing it. I’m mixed up, Sherlock. Without you, I’m so mixed up.

I hate my mind right now. I want to stop thinking about you. The thoughts of you smiling, laughing, and thinking overlap with thoughts of you on the pavement. It was raining, wasn’t it? Was the universe grieving the loss of a great man? A good man. I keep seeing your face, and you were always pale, but please. You looked _so_ pale. God, just stop it. Stop looking so pale. I just want you here with me. Please. I don’t want you beneath my feet.

I want you back with me in this flat. I want you out of these boxes. I want you back at that bloody window playing your violin and waking me up. I want you sitting in your chair while I’m not even in London and phoning me – an emergency by the sound of your voice, and I’ll come running – just for me to send Lestrade a text because you’re too busy thinking. I want you immersed in a case and I want to follow you. I’ll always follow you. Why’d you have to go where I can’t follow?

I could, I suppose, if I really wanted to. I could follow you now. But I don’t want to. I won’t. I can’t. I’ll be fine one day. Just not now. Besides, I don’t think you’d want that from me. You would want me to move on, but all these emotions hit me hard. I don’t know how to really go on, but I know that I will eventually. For now, I’m taking things as easy as I can. Trying to get my feet back on the ground.

Mrs. Hudson has gone easy on me ever since I’ve managed to return to the flat. She’s made me tea, kept me company. She says that she’s glad I’ve come back, and she hopes I’ll stay even if you’re not here, because she likes me, she really does, but she understands if I have to get away. She understands why I spent time away after it happened. She tells me that I needn’t worry about the rent, and she pats me on the thigh before tearing up and wrapping her thin arms around me and saying that she misses you so much and she can’t imagine what it is I’m feeling. She tells me that you must have been a wonderful partner. I never correct her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm my own everything, so I sort of self-britpicked this thing using various internet resources. I don't know if I caught all my initial mistakes, though, so if you see something that's incorrect, please let me know. I'll do my best to correct anything you find! Thanks for reading so far! x


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